John Kerry, under fire

State Department officials say Kerry is undeterred. | Getty

Few sober assessments of the Israeli-Palestinian positions, from hardliner or dove, differ significantly from the situation Kerry was apparently trying to describe. The Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza aren’t going anywhere, and their population is growing. The Israelis have no interest in empowering the Palestinians with citizenship rights, which would over time risk Israel’s identity as a Jewish state. In the near future, that could result in a situation where — in what would still be one country — the Palestinians outnumber Israelis, while Israelis retain the economic and political power.

“I do not believe, nor have I ever stated, publicly or privately, that Israel is an apartheid state or that it intends to become one,” Kerry said in his apology statement, leaving the rhetorical room for what he did say behind closed doors on Friday, captured on tape by The Daily Beast: that apartheid might be what Israel effectively gets anyway, no matter its intentions or current reality.

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Still, giving the Israelis a reality check again hasn’t exactly made them rush back to the table. Nor has it won over the Palestinians, who remain suspicious that the response to Kerry’s comment is more proof that despite all his efforts put into equal time and ascribe equal blame — America isn’t ever an even broker.

Kerry’s been down this road before many times, and repeatedly over the last year of peace efforts.

Back in November, he said in a television interview that “the alternative to getting back to the talks is the potential of chaos,” asking, “Does Israel want a third Intifada?”

What Kerry appeared to be trying to say was that he couldn’t see how violence wouldn’t eventually erupt again in the absence of peace. What many heard was Kerry condoning an uprising should Israel fail to agree to a deal.

Urging the two sides to find a solution in a speech at the Munich Security Conference Feb. 1, Kerry said, “The risks are very high for Israel. People are talking about boycott. That will intensify in the case of failure.”

What he appeared to be trying to say was that there was no denying the energy behind the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions effort that seeks to impose costs on the Israeli economy for the country’s treatment of Palestinians. What many heard was an acceptance of BDS as a legitimate response to Israel’s actions.

At a Senate hearing at the beginning of April, describing how talks had collapsed, Kerry went through a list of problematic actions from both sides that ended with a mention of the Israelis approving new settlement construction, “and poof! That was sort of the moment.”

What he appeared to be trying to say was that this was the last step in a sequence, chronologically. What many heard was Kerry blaming Israel for the end of the process.

Each time he was condemned by supporters of Israel.

But even without all these flare-ups, or thirty years in the Senate, three as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, a presidential run and over a year at the State Department, Kerry might have anticipated that “apartheid” would be a charged word, in private or public — at least in America.

Pointing out that former Israeli Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert have used the word, as has current lead negotiator Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, hasn’t helped his case at home — but it may help explain why the condemnations haven’t been streaming in from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

The measure of just how much Kerry blundered by using that one word himself was Anti-Defamation League national director Abe Foxman’s statement accepting what he called his “rejection” of apartheid.

Foxman isn’t one to be at odds with American officials, but he struck hard at Kerry in a statement Monday. Once Kerry backtracked over the one word, though, Foxman said all was forgiven.

“Apartheid is a particularly loaded epithet that has repeatedly been used by Israel’s worst enemies to delegitimize the Jewish state and suggest it promulgates abhorrent racial policies similar to those of the apartheid regime in South Africa,” Foxman said. Kerry “is a true friend of Israel. His statement makes that clear, and we consider this chapter closed.”